Chapter 8: Political Parties
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Transcript of Chapter 8: Political Parties
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Chapter 8: Political Parties
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American government is defined by Party
Competition between the two dominant parties,
Democrats and Republicans.
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• Political Party: according to Anthony Downs, a “team of men and women seeking to control the government apparatus by gaining office in a duly constituted election”
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• A widely adopted way of thinking about parties in political science is as “three-headed political giants” :
• (1) the party in the electorate; • (2) the party as an organization; • (3) the party in government
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Party in the Electorate
• By far the largest component of an American political party; consists of individuals that perceive themselves as party members
• American parties do not require dues or membership cards, you become a member by simply saying you are one, even if you vote for the opposite party
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Party as an Organization
• Each party has a national office (also state and local offices), a full time staff, rules and bylaws, and budgets
• There are leaders of the party who are the people that keep the party running between elections and make its rules
• The party organization is always pursuing electoral victory
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U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Democratic National Committee Chairperson
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Republican National Committee Chairman
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Party in Government
• Consists of elected officials who call themselves members of the party
• These leaders are the spokespersons for the party
• They do not always agree with each other
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Linkage Institutions• The channels or access points through which
issues and people’s policy preferences get on the government’s policy agenda
• In the U.S. there are four: elections; political parties; interest groups; and the mass media
• Linkage institutions help ensure that public preferences are heard
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Tasks performed by Parties
• 1. Parties pick candidates: a person needs to be nominated, or endorsed, by their party
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• 2. Parties run campaigns:
–parties coordinate political campaigns, although with new technology it is easier for candidates to campaign on their own (ex. Ross Perot)
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• 3. Parties give cues to voters: – many people rely on the party to give them the
cues for voting• a. Party Image: the voter’s perception of what the
Republicans or Democrats stand for, such as conservatism or liberalism
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• What is your perceived party image for:
Democrats? Republicans?
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• 4. Parties articulate policies: – within the electorate and within the government,
each political party advocates specific policy alternatives
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• 5. Parties coordinate policymaking: – parties are essential for coordination among the
branches of government; when a public official needs support to get something done, they look to their fellow partisans
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Anthony Downs’ “Rational-Choice Theory”
• a popular theory in political science to explain the actions of voters as well as politicians;
• assumes that individuals act in their own best interest, carefully weighing the costs and benefits of possible alternatives
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• a. voters want to maximize the chance that policies they favor will be adopted by government
• b. in order to win offices, the wise party selects policies that are widely favored
• c. since the majority of the electorate are in the middle, successful parties rarely stray far from the midpoint of public opinion
• d. there is frequent criticism that there is not much difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, however, given the nature of the American political market, they have no choice
• e. parties do differentiate themselves to some extent in order to forge different identities and build voter loyalty
• f. more than half of the population currently believes that important differences do exist between the parties
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